MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1998
NASHVILLE – Grandpa Jones, whose banjo playing, brightly colored suspenders and mischievous grin made him a country music favorite and a Hee Haw regular for more than two decades, died Thursday evening. He was 84. Jones died at about 7 p.m. of complications from a series of strokes at Mckendree Village Home Health center in Hermitage, where he has been since Feb. 10, said Opry spokesman Jerry Stroble.
50 years ago — 1973
Memphis Housing Authority agreed yesterday to sell a 21⁄2-acre parcel of land at the corner of Pauline and Jefferson
to the University of Tennessee for $611,300. UT plans to construct a 100,000-square-foot clinical science building to house 10 of the 15 departments of the college of medicine, which has never had a building of its own.
75 years ago — 1948
John Gurney, handsome and popular American singer from the Metropolitan Opera, will be the bass-baritone in the Charles L. Wagner production of "A Night in Old Vienna" Wednesday evening in the Concert Hall at Ellis Auditorium. This musical, starring five young American singers, is the fourth and final attraction of the Angier Concert series for the current season and will be under
the direction of Paul Breisach.
100 years ago — 1923
LITTLE ROCK – C.P.J. Mooney, managing editor of The Commercial Appeal, and others of a committee from Memphis, went before the Arkansas Legislature yesterday in behalf of Arkansas paying a part of the costs of construction of a concrete viaduct connecting Crittenden County with the Harahan Bridge, crossing the Mississippi River at Memphis.
125 years ago — 1898
The Starlight Social Club of Fort Pickering, a Memphis suburb, now has 48 members.